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T206Collector...I think the M116's are quite beautiful. Especially in counter-distinction to the T206 portraits of the same players. But as a stand-alone set, on its own merits, I find it a little pastey and boring. As I have said before, when you show them to people that are not intimately familiar with Hal Chase, let alone Honus Wagner and Christy Mathewson, they just appear to be a series of portraits of men from 100 years ago -- as exciting as flipping through the family album of another family at an antique store. What makes the T206 set so compelling, to me, is that you often get the player's baseball pose -- with bat, fielding, one glove showing, etc. -- plus a nice close up of the player's face on another card. That brings a certain context to the portrait as well as a vibrancy that is sorely lacking in the M116 set.
But, if you're going to go with a portrait set, I think M116 takes the cake above and beyond the T-205 cards which I find quite ugly.